Thursday, September 10, 2015

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So there I was... there I was... in... the Congo

Been playing this mobile app called Slingshot Braves which is a pretty nifty single player / multiplayer combo with some RPG elements. At least it was until the devs slowly succumbed to the power-creep greed cycle... which basically took what was an interesting strategy / turn based combat game that involved the player 'pulling back' and firing their character through the map to bounce off and hit / damage bad guys, build combo damage for consecutive hits, that combined when your partner was successful in making contact with your player on their turn, etc. It was great. Then, they started introducing more and more powerful weapons with more and more powerful special attacks, and more and more powerful bosses that required a very specific special skill to do any real damage too... that typically required the player to buy gems with real money.. and now it has become a game that unless you exterminate every bad guy on the screen within 1-2 moves, you get killed yourself. It's kinda stupid. The RPG side of the game has nearly completely disappeared and the dev on that side is at a standstill. I don't remember the last time they added in any actual storyline or new towns/villages to explore.
On the upside, a co-worker just recently told me that Plague Inc. has been released on mobile. I've heard a lot about it on the PC and was tempted to buy it but not at the $15-20 price point. Free mobile app with a 99 cent no-more-ads-option? Hokay! It's a decently fun little game! Kind of morbid playing as the bacteria/virus/fungus/etc that tries to spread across the globe before being discovered, and then racing against the cure to try and take down civilization.. which of course means the death of the player as a plague as well... with all the hosts being dead. So that doesn't make a lot of long-term sense but that's overthinking it. :) Do recommend, good time waster.